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If you're new to the Persona series, getting into the swing of things can be pretty intimidating. The Persona games belong to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise of videogames, and the original Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 came out on the PlayStation 2 back in 2007. In 2008, publisher Atlus released an enhanced version of the game titled Persona 3: FES, which not only featured a handful of notable improvements but it also boasted an entirely new chapter of the story known as the Answer. Both titles were fantastic Japanese role-playing games which balanced social interaction and classical sim elements with traditional dungeon crawling and turn-based battles.

Now, the Persona 3 experience has almost arrived on Sony's little black (or white... or silver...) handheld in the form of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable. The game takes almost all the content from the original Persona 3 and comes with a few of the tweaks from FES (though it doesn't pack in the Answer chapter). With only a few omissions made, the developers have squeezed an awful lot of the PS2 experience onto one UMD.

As was the case with the original, Persona 3 Portable is set in modern day Japan. You'll balance out living life as a student in high school while spending nights vanquishing the forces of evil. Yes, there are ample evil forces to vanquish, as every night at midnight the world enters a strange phase called the Dark Hour. During this time in between one day and the next, normal people are unknowingly entombed in coffins and dangerous Shadows roam the streets. The heroes of Persona 3 Portable are special, though; they do not transform into coffins and instead use the power of the Persona to fight the Shadows and unravel the intrigue of the Dark Hour.

The biggest addition in Persona 3 Portable is an entirely new playable female character. Although the story and gameplay will remain fairly unchanged, the female character will give players a different perspective on the events of Persona 3, which is an enticing reason for gamers that finished the first Persona 3 to go back and play through it again.

After choosing your character, you'll soon find that Persona 3 Portable is a bit different from its older brother/sister. Instead of anime cutscenes, there are more in-engine cutscenes, as well as still pictures. These changes make sense, considering the size of the original Persona 3 and the addition of the new main character, but it was still a little disappointing.

Another notable change is that certain exploration segments, like wandering the high school and dorms, is now done on a static screen with points of interest marked by icons. Some players might lament the loss of free movement here, but on the other hand it's a lot easier to move from one place to another and all the dialogue is still there.

Dialogue is an extremely important part of Persona 3 Portable. By building your character's Social Links (a fancy way of saying "makin' friends"), the power of your character's Persona will grow. These Personas are physical manifestations of a character's mind and give the character abilities that they wouldn't normally have access to in battle. So during the day, players need to build social relationships, attend school and lead a normal life. But come night time, the members of your party will head to Tartarus.

During the Dark Hour, a massive, haunting tower called Tartarus erupts from underneath the party's high school. By exploring Tartarus every night, players will experience the dungeon crawling portion of Persona 3 Portable. Players must take a group of three students up the tower, floor by floor, and conquer the increasingly resilient Shadows that occupy the tower's blood-stained halls.

The tower of Tartarus will challenge you.

Participating in a battle is fairly straight-forward, though there's a lot of strategy in combat. But at its most basic, Persona 3 Portable battles are turn-based affairs where you directly control your main character and AI patterns handle control of the other two. By attacking with your currently equipped weapon and using your Persona to cast spells, you can defeat all the super creepy-looking Shadows that want you dead.

One of the best parts about Persona 3 Portable is the collecting of Personas, which have some of the coolest designs around. By collecting (and subsequently fusing) Personas together, players can give their characters a whole boatload of different abilities. And with an entire school year to play through and a dark tower to thoroughly explore, this has to be one of the most robust PSP games yet.

Persona 3 Portable hits store shelves and the PlayStation Network early next month. Keep an eye out for more of IGN's coverage after E3 2010.

Gamertell’s recently gotten the opportunity to spend some quality, hands-on time with Persona 3 Portable, Atlus’ forthcoming PSP port of the PS2 game Persona 3. So much is changed though, that I’m almost wondering if port is the right word for the game. There’s a whole new storyline, new battle mechanics, part-time jobs and lots more.

So, I decided to chronicle my first five days of playing Persona 3 Portable. Each day will have a central “theme” and cover what I accomplished playing for between one or three hours. The only exceptions are this entry, where only about a half hour was spent playing.

After watching the new P3P opening, which seemed to focus on time, butterflies and multiple reflected images of each of the supporting characters, I decided to go with the female lead. Partially because I’m a woman, but also because I’d played Persona 3 FES and was interested in seeing how the experience would differ. It wasn’t because my character would then be able to date Akihiko. Really. Okay, maybe that helped influence my decision a little.

From there we move into visual novel territory. My heroine was on the train to head to her new dorm. This time around, there were no animated segments to introduce me to the area and Dark Hour. Instead, there were fairly detailed backgrounds and static character portraits that appear when characters decide to speak. Occasionally, where animated sequences would be, there would be stills from the original animated segments. The second it hits midnight, the famous clock image shows up, ticking down the seconds, and then shatters.

The heroine then sees the world around her change, all the power go out and coffins start appear on the road. Absolutely normal, nothing out of the ordinary. She heads to the dorm like nothing’s wrong. (If it were me, I’d get back on the train and go home. But that wouldn’t be much of a game.)

Once she gets to the dorm, the Creepy Little Boy we all know and love from every incarnation of Persona 3 is there to welcome her. He’s fully voice acted, in case you’re wondering, as is every character during story segments like this. I was a bit surprised at this - I almost thought space restrictions would limit spoken dialogue to only the essentials. He hands over a contract requiring her to be responsible for her actions, which of course the heroine signs without any hesistation. If you can’t trust a Creepy Little Boy with your personal information, who can you trust?

Yukari and Mitsuru then come down to greet the heroine, surprised that she’s actually here, functioning during this period of time. Their dialogue, and reactions, really aren’t all that different from when they talked to the hero in his story. They say there was some sort of accident, the heroine’s in this dorm “temporarily” and just to make the most of it. Oh, and if you try to point out how ludicrous some of the things you’ve seen in the past few hours are? They’ll brush you off. It’s totally normal for coffins to appear on the road, teenagers to carry pistols and a Creepy Little Boy to show up. Just go get some sleep - things will be better in the morning!

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable, the third North American release of Persona 3 since 2007, would be easy to dismiss as a quick cash-in on the popularity the series has gained since its release. Those who do that however would be selling the game short and missing out on an experience that feels surprisingly original. Whether you're picking up your first Persona title or playing Persona 3 for the third time, there is enough in this game to make it feel brand new.

"Persona 3 Portable is the perfect game for the PSP..."

Anyone who has been following Persona 3 Portable should know that along with the original male protagonist, gamers can now opt to play as the new female one. Having been this through one time before, I felt if I was going to spend another seventy hours with these characters I'd rather see it from the new girl's perspective. So far, just this one simple change has been enough to make the experience fresh and exciting.Much like playing Persona 4 after Persona 3, it was the character interactions that really changed things up as the fundamentals were the same. So this time while there isn't a whole new cast, the new interactions you have with characters is very entertaining.

During my original Persona 3 playthrough, I befriended Kenji first thing, as he's the first person to reach out to you. You slowly warm up to each other and soon learn about his MILF-loving tendancies, a charming and tender moment of bonding. However in my playthrough as a female, Junpei is the first person to buddy up to you. So instead of just learning about Junpei during the scripted story events, players can now learn more about his past and his personality. Not all of the social links are brand new in this version, as the older couple that run the bookstore are still the same, however, there are quite a few new ones and it's nice to see things from a different perspective.

The other part of Persona 3 Portable that I love is that it is so much faster to do things than before. Moving around outside of Tartarus is menu-based, as you move the cursor around and select what to interact with instead of moving your character. It's quick and cuts down on time wasted moving around the world. There is also the added feature of having a single button to press to bring up a travel shortcut menu. Sure the lack of seeing character sprites interacting during social links is a little saddening, but it's worth the sacrifice to speed things up. I've only leveled up a few links to around level four, so it is possible that a maxed social link will have more visuals for the more important moments; I cannot say.

Having played the first block of Tartarus and the first Full Moon event, I can easily say that I'm hooked again. Persona 3 Portable is the perfect game for the PSP, as having a portable version of this game makes it so much easier to pick up and put down in short bursts. Further helping that is how quick the game is to progress in thanks to these new shortcuts. Anyone who missed the first two releases on the PS2 should jump on this right away, as it's an experience not to miss out on... especially since you get a free Junpei hat with the first batch of games that ships.

Preview de Honestgamers:

I agree with the popular belief that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 is one of the finest RPG experiences available for PlayStation 2. When I played through the game prior to writing my review back in 2007, I was surprised to find the dungeon exploration so compelling, the demon collection so addictive and the social interaction so intriguing. By the time I reached the closing scenes after playing for around 100 hours, I felt almost as if I had joined the central cast of fictional friends. I mourned their losses, laughed at their misadventures and cheered for them as they faced betrayal and certain death. In short, I had a great time.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable represents a chance to revisit those adventures that I remember so fondly, to once more enjoy the innocence of high school life while working to delay the end of the world as we know it. The sad thing is that I was ready to write it off as something that I didn't have enough reason to experience a second time. I'd had fun that first time around, sure, but why would I choose to retread that familiar path when there are so many other games waiting for me to experience them?

The answer wound up being "For the new content." Despite arriving on a single UMD, Persona 3 Portable contains not only the original adventure and nameless hero that fans recall so fondly, but also an attractive new playable character (just wait until you see her) who provides the player with fresh new reasons to experience the familiar adventure all over again. Besides that, the overall game has been streamlined to capitalize on the PSP platform's strengths while reducing or eliminating potential weaknesses that so often plague such releases.

Don't worry that "streamlined" is actually a curse disguised as a blessing, either. In this case, the tinkering seems to have resulted in a superior experience. You'll spend less of your time trekking across the sprawling hallways that were so common in the game's PlayStation 2 iteration. The dormitory, the mall and the school grounds all are presented as two-dimensional backdrops. The general layout of each location remains similar, but you no longer are expected to spend 45 seconds climbing to the dormitory's fourth floor from its entry lobby when the time comes for a team meeting or when you just want to hit the hay. In fact, the game sometimes warps you directly to the place where you're expected to meet your friends, without the need for any useless wandering at all. Such improvements give you more time to enjoy "the good stuff." They also mean that load times are kept suitably brief.

Tartarus, the dungeon where you'll battle monsters while strengthening your characters and unraveling the central mystery of the Dark Hour, hasn't changed nearly as much as the external environments. That's for the best. It means that you still explore three-dimensional environments, still split up to cover more ground more quickly and still get the drop on your enemies with a well-placed sword strike. Battles remain strategic, as well. If this is your second time working through the adventure, you should be able to breeze through everything without paying close attention and yet... and yet now there's that central new character who I mentioned. She's available right from the start and she brings a new twist to the important central plot.

If you're familiar with the central storyline from a previous trip through the game, I'm sure that some of the potential twists have already occurred to you. If the hero is a female now and the other characters are still themselves, how will that affect the memorable sequence on the beach? How about that class trip and the shenanigans at the pool? Is it still possible to hook up with Yukari? What's up with the little boy that visits you by the light of the full moon? Some players won't care about such matters, but I'll admit to asking myself those questions and more. When you think about it, the presence of a female heroine changes a lot of things. She's there to do more than just look pretty or to give girls a character avatar with whom they can identify.

The real question, though, is just how much that female character's gender affects the game's progression when it comes to fundamental gameplay changes. That's one question that I can't yet answer, even though I put several hours into this new version while preparing to preview it. Persona 3 has always been a huge game, after all. The move to a portable platform doesn't do anything to change that, even with the streamlined navigation and even though some sequences that benefited from animated clips in the past now unfold as still frames with dialog. Don't worry; they're still stylish.

The main thing that I learned from my few hours of play is that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Portable is shaping up to be every bit the must-have experience that its original iteration was on PlayStation 2, only now it includes more content and boasts a lower price point from day one. If you've been searching for a robust adventure on the handheld and you haven't already experienced the core game—or even if you have experienced it but the idea of playing through as a girl appeals to you—then you're in for a real treat when the game arrives in stores next month.

To give folks something to talk about in the meantime, Atlus is offering a special hat as a reward to those who pre-order the game through GameStop or Amazon.com. It's a cap much like the one that Junpei wears in the game, black with the familiar white pattern stitched along its front side. I've received and have worn my cap already and its quality and apparent durability definitely impressed me. A metal clip on the back side makes it easy to adjust the hat so that it fits even my awkward head, plus I look almost like Junpei when I wear it. I'm not sure how many of the caps were produced or how long the offer will last, so I'd recommend that you get your order in right now to avoid missing out on one of the cooler pre-order incentives that I've seen in the last year or so. Forget codes for a free in-game gun or a mouse pad with boobs. The cap is something that I can enjoy for a long time to come without earning myself a slap from my wife or concerned stares from my parents.

Of course, Persona 3 Portable looks like it'll be worth purchasing even if you can't snag the hat. Good games tend to work that way.